Oncam, the experts of 360-degree video capture and business intelligence technology, announced it will showcase its latest technology innovations, including the Evolution 180 camera range and its 360-degree camera line, during IFSEC International, June 19-21, at ExCeL London. Oncam will join valued partner Milestone Systems at Stand C340 to demonstrate its experience and heritage within the security video and intelligence solutions market throughout the show.

The new Evolution 180 Outdoor camera offers a 12MP sensor and a 6MP dewarped Panoramic+ image. It is equipped with Oncam’s unique Angle Compensation Technology and Offset Angle Compensation, which provides adaptive dewarping of a 180-degree image. It is also a true day/night camera, allowing users to obtain high-quality video in all lighting conditions.

Oncam will display its 360-degree camera range in both the 5MP and 12MP versions in various form factors, highlighting the technology's ability to cover wide areas with no blind spots

ONVIF Profile S compliant

Environments that benefit from this unique view include education, hospitality, retail, public spaces and transportation, which demand comprehensive monitoring of large, open spaces without blind spots. The solution is also ONVIF Profile S compliant.

Oncam will also display its 360-degree camera range in both the 5MP and 12MP versions in various form factors, highlighting the technology's ability to cover wide areas with no blind spots; allow users to pan, tilt and zoom within a scene in both live and recorded video; and fully integrate with video management systems on the market today.

Intelligent surveillance through cameras

“IFSEC is a great forum to introduce our newest developments to the market, along with our trusted 360-degree video capture technology,” said Simon Reed, Vice President of Sales EMEA and Asia, Oncam.

“By partnering with Milestone Systems, we're able to demonstrate how our cameras can be viewed within leading video management systems and used for more intelligent surveillance to expand an organisation's situational awareness. We're also eager to highlight how Oncam continues to build on a culture of tried and true products that meet the ever-changing security and business needs of customers in a variety of markets across the globe.”

In case you missed it

Coming off a successful ISC West show, Honeywell is sharply focussed on product development, with an emphasis on advanced software. “We have a strong new product pipeline this year – more than two times the number of products than we’ve released in the past several years,” says Luis Rodriguez, Director of Product Marketing, Honeywell Commercial Security. “At ISC West, we received a lot of interest in how AI and new security systems are changing the market.”
Although uses for AI are still emerging in security, Honeywell sees an important role for AI in building a connected system to ensure the safety and security of a building, and more importantly, its occupants. AI allows end users to go beyond monitoring activity on a surface level to really understand the scene – from who exactly is in the area to what they might be doing. As more data is processed over time, AI will continue to build on its learnings to help deliver a more accurate assessment of potential threats each time.
Machine learning-based analytics
End users should explore the use of machine learning-based analytics as machine learning is more advanced than AI-based systems, says Rodriguez. “When speaking to dealers and integrators, end users should also inquire about the detection accuracy of systems that use AI or machine learning technology, particularly around false positives and negatives.”
Honeywell seeks to develop integrated security systems that provide the earliest detection
“Additionally, end users should always ask to conduct site testing so to understand how well-suited the machine learning-based system is to the particular user’s native environment,” adds Rodriguez. “The testing will help identify the exact needs of their site.” Honeywell is reinvesting in its video portfolio, both in hardware and software innovation, as well as partnering with the top experts in the IT and education industries to stay ahead of customer demand. Honeywell seeks to develop integrated security systems that provide the earliest detection, enable the fastest response, centralise decision making, and allow customers to manage it all from anywhere.
Solutions for vertical markets
Honeywell Commercial Security is focussed on supporting vertical markets that have specific security needs such as education, banking and finance, and pharma. Each has unique nuances that call for tailored security approaches. “As Honeywell continues to develop its suite of security solutions for the future and identify personalised systems for each vertical, AI such as analytics, deep learning and facial recognition will play an integral role during research and testing,” says Rodriguez.
Honeywell is developing video and audio analytics technology capable of studying crowd behaviour as well as detecting guns, gunshots
An example is the education market, where eliminating human delay in reporting potential threats to law enforcement and creating faster systems that help omit single-point failures are key to protecting schools and ensuring students’ safety. To address those challenges, Honeywell is developing video and audio analytics technology capable of studying crowd behaviour as well as detecting guns, gunshots and fights, says Bruce Montgomery, Business Development Manager, Honeywell Commercial Security.
Testing technology for sports security
The software is able to visualise, automate planning, design and efficiency analysis of a video surveillance system"A partnership with University of Southern Mississippi’s National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) is testing technology such as MaxPro Video, Pro-Watch Access Control and UNP Mass Notification in the National Sport Security Laboratory and in connected real-world environments. “The analytics data gathered from these environments will help inform future security innovations,” says Montgomery.
Another Honeywell partnership is with JVSG, whose CCTV Design Software offers a new way to design more affordable and higher quality video surveillance systems. Integrators and distributors are now able to add a range of models from Honeywell’s portfolio of Performance Series IP Cameras into their system design from the software’s database.
“The software is able to visualise, automate planning, design and efficiency analysis of a video surveillance system,” says Jeremy Kimber, Director of Enterprise Global Product Management, Honeywell Security and Fire. The program is used by more than 7,000 CCTV designers in more than 130 countries around the world and is downloaded more than 60,000 times every year.

Statistically speaking, incidents of terrorism are unlikely to impact most businesses and institutions. However, the mere possibility of worst-case-scenario attacks is enough to keep security professionals awake at night. Compounding the collective anxiety is the minute-by-minute media coverage when an attack does occur. The immediacy of the shared experience of global tragedy impacts us all – including security system decision-makers. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How is the rise in terrorism impacting the physical security market?

Edge devices (and edge computing) are the future. Although, this does seem a little cliché, it is the truth. The edge computing industry is growing as quickly as technology can support it and it looks like we will need it to.
IoT global market
The IoT (Internet of Things) industry alone will have put 15 billion new IoT devices into operation by the year 2020 according to a recent Forbes article titled, “10 Charts That Will Challenge Your Perspective of IoT’s growth”. IoT devices are not the only edge devices we have to deal with as the total number of connected edge devices includes the likes of devices like security devices, phones, sensors, retail sales devices, and industrial and home automation devices.
The IoT (Internet of Things) industry alone will have put 15 billion new IoT devices into operation by the year 2020
The sheer number of devices begins to bring thoughts of possible security and bandwidth implications into perspective. The amount of data that will need to be passed and processed with all of these devices will be massive. There needs to be consideration taken by all business owners and automation engineers into how this amount of data and processing will be conducted.
Ever-expanding edge devices market
As the number of edge devices in the marketplace and their use among consumers and businesses rises, the need to be able to handle the data from all of these devices is no longer going to be suitable for central server architectures. We are talking about hundreds of billions and even trillions of devices. According to IHS Markit researchers’ study, there were 245 million CCTV cameras worldwide. One has to imagine there are at least 25% of that many access control devices (61.25 million devices) based on a $344 million market cap also calculated by IHS Markit’s researchers.
If all the other edge devices mentioned earlier are considered then one can see that trying to route them all through servers for processing is going to start to become difficult if it hasn’t already, -which arguably it already has, as is evidenced by the popularity of cloud-based solutions amongst those businesses that already use a lot of edge devices or are processing a lot of information on a constant basis.
Cloud computing
The question is whether cloud computing the most effective and efficient solution as the IoT industry grows The question is this; is cloud computing the most effective and efficient solution as the IoT industry grows and the amount of edge devices becomes so numerous? My belief is that it is not. Taking the example of a $399 USD device that is just larger than the size of a pack of cards and runs a CPU benchmarked at the same level as a mid-size desktop. This device has 8GB RAM and 64GB EMMC built-in and a GPU that can comfortably support a 4K signal at 60Hz with support for NVMe SSDs for add-on storage. This would have been unbelievable five years ago.
As the price of edge computing goes down, which it has done in a dramatic way over the last 10 years (as can be seen with my recent purchase), the price to maintain a central server that can perform the processing required for all of the new devices being introduced to the world (due to the low cost of entry for edge device manufacturers) becomes more expensive. This introduces the guarantee that there will be a point where it will be less expensive for businesses, and consumers alike, to do the bulk of their processing at the edge as opposed to in central server architectures.
Cloud computing is now being overtaken by edge computing, the method of processing data at the edge of the network in the devices themselves
Edge computing
There are a plethora of articles discussing and detailing the opposition between the two sides of the computing technology coin, cloud computing and edge computing. The gist of it is that “cloud computing” was the hot new buzzword three years ago and is now being overtaken by “edge computing.” The truth is that cloud computing is a central server architecture hosted at someone else’s location.
Edge computing is going to be a necessary development in the technology industry
Edge computing is the method of processing data at the edge of the network (in the devices themselves) and allowing for less resources required at a central location. There is certainly a use case for both, however the shift to edge computing amongst the general public and small to mid-sized businesses will not be a surprise to those players, who have been paying attention.
One article titled, “Next Big Thing In Cloud Computing Puts Amazon And Its Peers On The Edge” by Investor’s Business Daily takes the stance that edge computing is going to completely displace centralised cloud computing and even coins the phrase, “Cloud computing, decentralised” to explain edge computing.
It speaks for the stance that most experts in technology seem to be taking, including Amazon Web Services’ VP of Technology, Marco Argenti according to the same article. We know that edge computing is going to be a necessary development in the technology industry, and it is happening as I write this, and quickly at that.
Cost efficiency of edge processing
As time goes on, the intersection between the prices of network bandwidth, edge processing and maintaining super powerful central servers will cause edge processing to be the most efficient and cost-effective way to maintain a scalable network in any environment, including datacenters.
Owning a central server or utilising edge computing become the better options
As it currently stands, most residential users can only achieve a 1Gbps WAN (internet) connection, and small to medium-sized business can’t get much more but seem to get much less, based on my personal experience. When more than 1Gbps needs to be processed, cloud computing becomes very expensive at which point, owning a central server or utilising edge computing become the better options.
Then you look a total cost of ownership and when the cost of edge computing is less expensive than the cost of maintaining central server architectures, edge computing becomes the single best option. So, I’ll say it again, edge devices (and edge computing) are the future.